Andy has been writing about the governance of sport for over 15 years. Prior to working on the Sports Integrity Initiative, he was the editor of World Sports Law Report for eight years. He has also worked for the Press Association and has written for numerous trade magazines. He has also created, chaired and spoken at numerous conferences on the business of sport, and produced the Sports Law Show for iSportConnect TV.
All posts by Andy Brown
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of World Athletics made a “judgement call” not to announce Shelby Houlihan’s provisional suspension due to the unique circumstances of the case, a spokesperson has told The Sports Integrity Initiative. ‘The AIU will publicly disclose the existence of a pending case where the Athlete...
Shelby Houlihan’s participation at the US Olympic Trials is in doubt, after the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) indicated that USA Track and Field (USATF) would respect a four year ban issued by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). USATF had initially indicated that Houlihan, who was...
• The International Testing Agency (ITA) has charged a Bulgarian weightlifter with attempting to avoid a doping test. The ITA alleges that Yunder Beytula provided incorrect whereabouts information to the ITA, which it discovered when attempting to locate him for a 29 December 2020 out of competition test. It...
A record 19 national anti-doping projects have applied for over €600,000 from the UNESCO Fund for the Elimination of Doping in Sport, which held a Committee meeting in Moscow yesterday. At the meeting, it was also agreed to provide over €300,000 in funding to anti-doping projects in Bhutan, Greece,...
Is it conceivable that a top athletics Coach and experienced athlete have never heard of nandrolone? Shelby Houlihan, 28, the US record holder at 1,500m and 5,000m and her Coach, Jerry Schumacher, claimed never to have heard of it in statements (here and here) confirming a four year ban...
• Hamane Niang, President of the international basketball federation (FIBA), has stepped aside due to allegations that he ignored sexual abuse in Mali basketball, as well as being involved in incidents of sexual harassment. The New York Times reported multiple incidents of sexual abuse occurring from 1999 onwards, and...
The International Testing Agency (ITA) has asked the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) to sanction Colombia, after the Anti-Doping Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS ADD) refused to accept that three lifters had tested positive for Boldenone due to contaminated meat consumed at a training camp. IWF...
• Daniel Kinahan has been served with a court summons that alleges he is continuing to organise fights for boxing promoter MTK Global in order to launder money obtained via drug trafficking, reports the Irish Mirror. The lawsuit (case 5:2020cv02618) was launched by boxing manager Moses Heredia, who alleges...
• Italy’s national anti-doping agency (NADO Italia) has sanctioned seven people with lengthly bans for anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs). Four people unaffiliated to an Italian sporting federation have been sanctioned with bans ranging from 10 to 20 years for trafficking prohibited substances. Filippo Sauro and Andrea Sauro were both...
Italian mountain bike champion Elena Gaddoni has escaped with a five month ban for a second doping offence, which followed an 18 month ban issued in 2010. Gaddoni was provisionally suspended on 15 February for an adverse analytical finding (AAF) involving acetazolamide, a diuretic. On 8 June, Italy’s national...
A US investigation into horse doping has revealed ‘The Devil’, a masking agent claimed to be so powerful that it can mask easily detectable substances such as cocaine. In an October 2019 recorded phone call, Sarah Izhaki offered to sell the masking agent to an undercover agent. It is...
• Gennady Alyoshin (Геннадию Алёшину) and Robert Popov (Роберту Попову), the former Deputy Chairman of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the Russian Athletics Federation’s (RusAF) anti-doping coordinator, have been arrested on charges of embezzlement, reports Russian State news agency TASS. It is understood that the arrests were made...
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has published ten questions that parties will be asked to consider in deciding if World Athletics’ ‘DSD Regulations’ contravene Caster Semenya’s human rights. In November last year, the South African 800m Olympic Champion began an appeal to the ECHR, arguing that the...
• Yana Sizikova has been arrested and detained at the French Open as part of a French investigation into match-fixing. ‘It can be assumed that this is a continuation of a story that began in October last year’, read a statement from the Russian Tennis Federation (ФТР), referring to...
• UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) has ‘paused’ its proceedings against Dr. Richard Freeman pending the outcome of his High Court appeal against a March Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) Decision to remove him from the Medical Register. The MPTS found the former doctor to British Cycling and Team Sky guilty...
